Hey all,
I've seen some extraordinarily detailed trip reports. They've been helpful. I'll do what I can...
The travelers, myself, Male, 45, along with DW, and DD (5 years old). We booked fairly last minute (about 5 weeks before the cruise) still got a pretty reasonable price for an Inside Guarantee Stateroom. I checked about 6 days before the cruise and saw that we had been assigned room 9011. (this is our 2nd Disney Cruise, we did the Disney Magic 4 night Bahamas last year). We cruised once on the Norwegian Sun and DW has been on a couple of RC ships years ago.
We're from Burlington, ON, Canada, so we booked flights from Buffalo to MCO. Based on sound advise we flew down on 2/6 (the day before embarkation). Rented a car at MCO through Budget (get the Fastbreak membership to avoid lines) and stayed at the Country Inn in Orlando. We spent the day and night in Orlando, and drove to Port Canaveral in the morning. (I think we left Orlando around 10, our embarkation was due for 12:15). Drive was uneventful, arrived at Budget in PC at around 11. Loooooong lines here for the shuttle to PC (we expected as much). People were absolutely losing their minds. They have to understand this is vacation. The boat is not going to leave for hours, and you just have to chill a bit. I think there were 3 fairly big ships in Port that day. We ended up waiting for about 45 minutes for the shuttle. Some people called cabs, but a couple of the cabs ended up arriving at the same time as our shuttle. The Budget people are doing the best they can with the amount of people that crush that little office.
Arrived at the terminal about 12:10 (right on time). Basically no line up to get registered and get on the ship (open boarding, they didn't have to call any groups). Welcomed by family name and applause and on we go!
As advised the first thing to do was go directly to the Port Adventures Desk to get Anna/Elsa and Princess Ball tickets. Princess Ball was 1st sea day, and A/E was 2nd. Then proceeded to Kids club to get bracelet (I had already pre-registered DD online). They had several Kids Club staff throughout the Kids Club set up to sign DD in so that was painless. Walked around kids club a bit, it's kind of like the one on the Magic, but bigger, and doesn't have Avengers Academy (but does have a lot more theme rooms. Split up into Oceaneer's club and Oceaneer's lab.
Dropped off carry on suitcases to room 9011. Reasonably roomy. Magic Porthole, which my DD never got tired of. Not too bad for storage when you hung everything up, used the drawers in the desk, and we stored DD's clothes in the coffee table. I miss having the dresser that we had on the Magic (we had a balcony room then). Also, this room did not have a split bathroom, it was all in one. Didn't really notice the difference though, but might be inconvenient with 4 people?
Went to lunch. I know Cabanas was open, but I heard it's a bit more chilled out at Enchanted Garden, so we went there. Got seated, and had a nice buffet.
Report continued in next post...
I've seen some extraordinarily detailed trip reports. They've been helpful. I'll do what I can...
The travelers, myself, Male, 45, along with DW, and DD (5 years old). We booked fairly last minute (about 5 weeks before the cruise) still got a pretty reasonable price for an Inside Guarantee Stateroom. I checked about 6 days before the cruise and saw that we had been assigned room 9011. (this is our 2nd Disney Cruise, we did the Disney Magic 4 night Bahamas last year). We cruised once on the Norwegian Sun and DW has been on a couple of RC ships years ago.
We're from Burlington, ON, Canada, so we booked flights from Buffalo to MCO. Based on sound advise we flew down on 2/6 (the day before embarkation). Rented a car at MCO through Budget (get the Fastbreak membership to avoid lines) and stayed at the Country Inn in Orlando. We spent the day and night in Orlando, and drove to Port Canaveral in the morning. (I think we left Orlando around 10, our embarkation was due for 12:15). Drive was uneventful, arrived at Budget in PC at around 11. Loooooong lines here for the shuttle to PC (we expected as much). People were absolutely losing their minds. They have to understand this is vacation. The boat is not going to leave for hours, and you just have to chill a bit. I think there were 3 fairly big ships in Port that day. We ended up waiting for about 45 minutes for the shuttle. Some people called cabs, but a couple of the cabs ended up arriving at the same time as our shuttle. The Budget people are doing the best they can with the amount of people that crush that little office.
Arrived at the terminal about 12:10 (right on time). Basically no line up to get registered and get on the ship (open boarding, they didn't have to call any groups). Welcomed by family name and applause and on we go!
As advised the first thing to do was go directly to the Port Adventures Desk to get Anna/Elsa and Princess Ball tickets. Princess Ball was 1st sea day, and A/E was 2nd. Then proceeded to Kids club to get bracelet (I had already pre-registered DD online). They had several Kids Club staff throughout the Kids Club set up to sign DD in so that was painless. Walked around kids club a bit, it's kind of like the one on the Magic, but bigger, and doesn't have Avengers Academy (but does have a lot more theme rooms. Split up into Oceaneer's club and Oceaneer's lab.
Dropped off carry on suitcases to room 9011. Reasonably roomy. Magic Porthole, which my DD never got tired of. Not too bad for storage when you hung everything up, used the drawers in the desk, and we stored DD's clothes in the coffee table. I miss having the dresser that we had on the Magic (we had a balcony room then). Also, this room did not have a split bathroom, it was all in one. Didn't really notice the difference though, but might be inconvenient with 4 people?
Went to lunch. I know Cabanas was open, but I heard it's a bit more chilled out at Enchanted Garden, so we went there. Got seated, and had a nice buffet.
Report continued in next post...
